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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27550804">Forever It Is, Then</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/2am_limbo/pseuds/2am_limbo'>2am_limbo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>House of Memories [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Sick Ronan Lynch, Sickfic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:08:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,284</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27550804</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/2am_limbo/pseuds/2am_limbo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are you safe?" Ronan heard Adam ask through the phone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>House of Memories [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928317</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>160</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Forever It Is, Then</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ronan awoke early one morning missing Adam desperately. When he opened his eyes, he immediately felt the sting of tears and the clench in his chest, and he wanted nothing more than to abandon everything right this second to make the 8-hour drive up to see him.</p><p> </p><p>He didn't sleep well. He saw things. Not Night Horrors, but other terrible things. Ferocious things, ravens and crows, tearing him apart, piece by piece, and he had only laid there, didn't try to fight it. </p><p> </p><p><em> Oh</em>. Ronan thought as he began to remember. It was odd that he didn't remember every single detail upon first waking, but he felt so groggy. </p><p> </p><p>He lifted his arms and saw the blood streaked along the bare skin of his forearms and up near his shoulders. They weren't dangerous wounds, not bad enough to seek medical attention, but they were still alarming. Ronan looked down to his chest, almost expecting to see his chest ripped open like in the dream, and yet he was breathing. He felt confused. There were several puncture wounds through his tank top from large black beaks, large tears, and rips, but not deep. That didn't mean that they weren't painful.</p><p> </p><p>Ronan choked. He felt almost like he might vomit, but no. Not that kind of reaction. His hands shook violently. He looked at them as if they weren't his. Why was he so disoriented?</p><p> </p><p>Ronan didn't realize that he had even reacted until he heard Adam's sleepy voice in his ear.</p><p> </p><p>"Ronan?" Adam asked, clearly concerned. It must have been late. "What's wrong?" Ronan opened his mouth but no sound came out.</p><p> </p><p>"Ronan?" Adam sounded wide awake now, and yet Ronan couldn't speak. "You're scaring me," Adam added after a moment of silence.</p><p> </p><p>That brought Ronan back just a little bit. He didn't want to scare Adam, but he didn't feel right enough to be able to fix it.</p><p> </p><p>"I…" Ronan tried his best to make his voice work. "Can't stop shaking." </p><p> </p><p>Adam wouldn't ask him what happened, he would know. Adam always knew, sometimes even better than he himself. Ronan could almost see him sitting straight up in his bed, eyes were drawn together with worry, hoping that Ronan would talk to him, and Ronan felt terrible about it. So terrible. He shouldn't have called. This was the first time he's called Adam after a nightmare since he left, despite Adam's persistence, but he shouldn't have, he knew Adam had a class in the morning.</p><p> </p><p>"Are you safe?"</p><p> </p><p>Ronan ran his hand over his chest and squeezed his eyes closed. </p><p> </p><p>"Yeah," he murmured, "hold on, I'm sorry."</p><p> </p><p>More red flags shot up when Adam heard <em> I'm sorry</em>, soft and sad, words he never, ever thought he would hear come out of Ronan's mouth. Adam heard him retching in the background. Ronan felt a little more grounded then after emptying what little he had in his stomach, his head a bit clearer, but something wasn't right. Off, off, <em> off</em>.</p><p> </p><p>"Ronan?" Ronan faintly heard his voice coming from somewhere but he couldn't place it. He placed his forehead to the cool porcelain of the toilet and closed his eyes. His bare feet were cold. There was a steel grey rug there, though, or there used to be Ronan wasn't sure, but he remembered the softness and how it pressed into his toes. Adam had picked it out, he liked the plushness of it. <em> Adam</em>. He wished he could talk to him and not only in his dreams.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>"Ronan, Jesus <em> Christ</em>," Ronan felt something reverberate close to his back as if something had fallen, but then his mind settled again and drifted, imagining that there had been a voice. He rolled his head a little closer to the toilet to find a colder patch of tile and pulled the comforter up over his chin. The blanket was nice and plush and still vaguely smelled like Adam. </p><p> </p><p>Ronan felt a tug at his shoulder, but he shrugged it off and rolled back over onto his side.</p><p> </p><p>"L'm'lone, Opal," Ronan slurred from beneath the blanket. </p><p> </p><p>"Jesus, Ronan, it's <em> me</em>, Adam," Ronan only hummed in response from under the blanket. Adam leaned over Ronan then since he refused to move and pressed his cheek to Ronan's forehead.</p><p> </p><p>"God, Ronan, you're burning up," Adam got up and ran a couple of rags under cold water. "How long have you been like this?"</p><p> </p><p>"I thought it was the ravens," Ronan said quietly and vaguely gestured towards his body as a whole. </p><p> </p><p>"Come on," Adam said quietly but strong. Ronan loved Adam's voice. He always sounded so sure and strong and practical, and he loved him.</p><p> </p><p>"I love you, too," the Adam Voice said, slightly taken aback. Interesting. He's never had a dream quite like this before, Dream Adam responding to things that hadn’t even left his mouth yet, or maybe they had, he couldn’t remember moving his lips, but he didn’t really care. The words were still nice to hear.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Ronan woke up still in a daze but a bit more lucid with a lukewarm rag over his forehead and up over his hairline. His brows furrowed in confusion before he opened his eyes, and when he turned his pounding head, he found Adam sitting on the edge of the bed with a deep, embedded look of concern across his features.</p><p> </p><p>“But you’re at Harvard,” Ronan rasped uncomfortably.</p><p> </p><p>“Clearly not, Lynch,” Adam said, “you scared the shit out of me.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Ronan asked, and Adam raised an eyebrow. The last thing Ronan remembered was seeing the wounds in his chest and somehow stumbling without moving.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m glad I got here when I did, you had a fever of almost 103. You called me sounding all delirious and then disappeared on me. You said you thought it was the ravens,” Adam said, and that last part sounded more like a question, and Ronan looked away, suddenly panicked. His hand flew to his chest to feel for the open wounds. He felt that his shirt was gone, but before he could actually look down to examine himself, Adam stilled his hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Relax, Ronan,” Adam said. “I cleaned everything. They weren’t as bad as they looked. Was that the ravens?” Ronan nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s what woke me up. These massive aggressive fucking birds--” Ronan looked at his forearms, but the wounds there really weren’t as bad as he felt they were. His veins throbbed.</p><p> </p><p>“I woke up feeling really… Off. And I knew something was wrong, I felt like I was outside of myself, but I thought it was something related to the dreaming.” </p><p> </p><p>Adam didn’t think he had ever heard Ronan speak a full sentence without any profanity, but then again, it looked like Ronan was struggling to find words at all. </p><p> </p><p>“No, you’re sick,” Adam gently smoothed the now warm rag over his forehead and scalp before removing it altogether. “I think your body and mind probably just fed off of one another, exacerbated by the fever.” Ronan looked up at Adam from under his lashes, and Adam took that as an invitation. Adam climbed over Ronan and laid down beside him close. He ran his warm hand over Ronan’s stomach before resting it across his chest in a protective gesture.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re due for an aspirin soon,” Adam said quietly against Ronan’s neck, and Ronan leaned his face down to rest on Adam’s head.</p><p> </p><p>"How long are you staying?" Ronan asked. He felt terrible that Adam was even here at all, but he definitely wasn't complaining.</p><p> </p><p>"Until you don't need me anymore," Adam answered as he lazily traced a pattern on the soft skin below Ronan's ear. Ronan hummed then.</p><p>"Forever it is, then."</p>
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